7.079
24 (Thu) March 2016
A Typical Korean At-Home Meal
1.5
by W’s aunt
+ Mideum Banchan [takeout]
at home
-Apgujeong, Seoul-
with the family
Holy Week Holiday, Day 1.
In Seoul. Spending the long weekend, including Maundy Thursday (today) and Good Friday (tomorrow), at home. Flying back Sunday.
The idea of purchasing pre-cooked banchan would’ve seemed far-fetched until maybe 30 years ago. But during the 90s, when mothers began to work, and grandmothers began to live apart from the nuclear family — the men, of any generation, completely useless to fill the void; even today, Korean men who cook like to boast about how progressive they are in doing so, although the boasting per se, which implies that cooking remains a woman’s task, reveals that they remain regressive in principle — banchan stores started to spread. Now, they’re entirely mainstream, at least one in every neighborhood.
No longer living at home-home these days, I find the typical Korean at-home meal (see most recently 6.312 A Typical Korean…) to be quite comforting upon my occasional return.